Saturday, May 31, 2014

Lego bust of Neil Gaiman's Morpheus



Lego bust of Sandman/Morpheus with light up eyes by The Deathly Halliwell.

Glitch Playing Cards



Glitch Playing Cards Kickstarter by Soleil Zumbrunn.

Quidditch-themed aquarium


Lego Quidditch aquarium by kst8er.

Space art by elementary school students



"The 2014 NASA LaRC Art Contest, open to all students, grades K-12, in the Hampton Roads Virginia Area. This years theme, The Future Is Now, encouraged young artists to explore how today's technology is bringing tomorrow's dreams closer to reality." Via.

Jerry Seinfeld's internet show was inspired by fetishistic Timberland unboxing videos

People expect things on the Internet to be very personal. I went through a period a couple of years ago where I was obsessed with Timberland. I started looking up videos that people make of themselves unboxing new Timberland boots. 
I don't want to use sexual terminology, but there's something pornographic about it. It's the sound of the paper, the lacing up of the boots, the boot on the wood floor, the squeak sound. I love these videos. That very personal microniche that the Internet world created--it's like a honeycomb with millions of hexagonal cells, and you're just interested in four. That seemed like a fun place to play. "I like taking videos of coffee and cars and comedians. Maybe I could weave them into something." It's not really a show.

Crabeater Seals have teeth on their teeth




Crabeater seals evolved to have teeth specially shaped to filter krill--they take a mouthful of water, close their teeth, and force out the water, using the teeth to filter krill. Via.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Lego Aquaman lounging on a couch





Aquaman, Optimus Prime, and Batman from Angus MacLane's Lego couch series.


Help Us! Great Warrior wallpaper.


Tauntaun butcher shop poster:
Available June 1st, 12noon PST exclusively at super7store.com. $50 ea.

TIL: Carmen Sandiego was originally called Esteban Devious

Wednesday, May 28, 2014



Olly Moss's D and D character sheet from the latest Campo Santo newsletter.

Here's the Brian Wilson Dodgers bobblehead



June 26 giveaway.

"An Order for 10 Submarines Led to Misleading News on the Economy"

Good news: Orders for durable goods — motor vehicles, machinery, computers and other long-lasting items — rose in April, according to data released Tuesday by the Department of Commerce. Most economists expected a decline. 
But if we dig into the manufacturing sector data, we see that the U.S. government ordered 10 submarines from General Dynamics in April; that deal was worth nearly $18 billion.


Nosferatu poster by Nicolas Delort on sale soon.

Google's self-driving cars "won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal"



Google:
we’ve capped the speed of these first vehicles at 25 mph. On the inside, we’ve designed for learning, not luxury, so we’re light on creature comforts, but we’ll have two seats (with seatbelts), a space for passengers’ belongings, buttons to start and stop, and a screen that shows the route—and that’s about it.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Charlie Brown meets the Alien

Bat-flipping lessons with Yasiel Puig




MTV had Puig give bat-flipping lessons to passersby.

Speaking of the Dodgers, Juan Uribe is the best:



*Buy Puig toys at ebay.

"Wes Anderson is the great-grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars"

Via.

Blade Runner-themed art show



Contributions by Kilian Eng and Signalstarr for an upcoming Blade Runner tribute show at Bottleneck.

"The Supreme Court has been quietly revising its decisions years after they were issued, altering the law of the land without public notice"

NY Times:
most changes are neither prompt nor publicized, and the court’s secretive editing process has led judges and law professors astray, causing them to rely on passages that were later scrubbed from the official record.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Using Yelp to discover unreported foodborne illnesses

NatGeo:
Today, in its weekly news bulletin, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports on an innovative project that the New York City health department tried out for nine months in collaboration with Yelp. The team examined more than 294,000 reviews posted to the site between July 2012 and March 2013; found that 468 of them reported people getting sick after a meal; and discovered, within those 468, three foodborne illness outbreaks that authorities not known about.

Friday, May 23, 2014

"News publishers regard Facebook much the same way ancient peoples perceived their gods: Powerful but mysterious, it can send monsoons that make the crops grow or a parching drought that brings famine, and it never has to explain why."

Thursday, May 22, 2014



Pacific Rim fan art.

Incredible diving catch by Puig



*Buy Puig toys at Amazon.


Book cover for Counterspy, available at Amazon.

The Choose Your Own Adventure cover for Neil Patrick Harris's autobiography



Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography is available for preorder at Amazon.

" Did the generous terms of the GI Bill help mitigate post-World War II PTSD?"

TBD:
The WWII GI Bill was very generous. Not only could you get an education, you could get a mortgage. And you could stay unemployed for a year while getting $20 a week.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

"The transformation of Russell Westbrook Jr. . . ."

Grantland:
The transformation of Russell Westbrook Jr. from an uncelebrated 16-year-old shooting guard to a potential NBA draft pick happened during the summer after his junior year in high school, when he shot up five inches practically overnight. He already had speed and phenomenal athleticism, but that summer was the genetic Powerball, the first of his mind-boggling leaps.


A $10 charitable contribution could get you a part in Star Wars Episode VII.
Bleeding Cool:
Like Spider-Woman, She-Hulk was created as a way to preserve the trademark. Basically to stop the folk behind the Hulk TV show creating a female spin-off just as had been done with the Bionic Woman, that they would own rights to.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Star Strange Strike Team

Ralph Lauren's Desert Camouflage Sport Coat



Ralph Lauren's Desert Camouflage Sport Coat.

That viral photo of a "drop of seawater magnified 25 times" was dramatically misleading

"This is NOT a 'drop' of seawater. The ocean is not a thick zooplankton soup, except for in some rare and special circumstances. This is the result of towing a zooplankton net around to concentrate seawater enough to actually look at the zooplankton. Basically, this photo is a swimming-pool amount of ocean concentrated down into about a half-pint of goo."

Friday, May 16, 2014

Mysterious ancient ritual identified



Link roundup

1. Milwaukee Brewer Carlos Gomez googled "rich people conversations" to come up with conversational topics.

2. LA Times:
A massive manhunt, involving SWAT teams, K9 units, and hundreds of other officers, brought a swath of the mid-city area to a halt. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck reported to a shocked public that the officers had been lucky to escape with only minor injuries. 
The ambush, Beck said, had been "a blatant attempt to assassinate two of the people who protect this community." 
Now, however, a report by LAPD Inspector General Alex Bustamante has concluded the attack may have never occurred.
3. "The idea for Doritos was conceived in Disneyland":
The restaurant was located in Frontierland and served standard Tex-Mex, with every meal boasting a complimentary bag of Fritos. The restaurant was a hit, but it didn’t make its own tortillas, a job which was contracted out to Alex Foods. It was a salesman from Alex Foods who saw discarded tortillas at Casa de Fritos and told the cook he should fry them up and make tortilla chips out of them, rather than just throw them out. Because tortilla chips weren’t yet made by Fritos, and Fritos themselves were given out with the meals, Casa de Fritos hadn’t thought to offer them like other Mexican restaurants did.

The cook did as he advised and used his own special blend of seasoning and the chips were a hit. The restaurant put them on the menu as a regular item but didn’t inform the Frito Company of the change.

About a year later, in 1961, West walked by the restaurant on a family vacation and noticed the chips. He was then the vice president of marketing for the company and felt like he had stumbled upon a goldmine. When he returned to work, he pitched the idea of selling packaged tortilla chips—a happy medium between Lay’s thin potato chips and Fritos’ thick, curly corn chips. His bosses weren’t initially convinced.

The time Tom Hanks fought The Fonz in a martial arts duel (and more)



Over at Screenburn:

1. Sega's Fonz arcade game + video of young Tom Hanks vs. The Fonz in an extended martial arts duel.

2. How to get the new giant rancor mount in The Old Republic.

3. Lamborghini covered by a hologram vinyl wrap.

4. New free Godzilla mobile game.

5. A new look at Bruce Lee in EA Sports UFC.

Here's why Nike's official match soccer jerseys are so much more expensive than the replicas

The USMNT stadium jerseys are $150 but the replicas are $90.  Football Shirts took a detailed look and says it's because the stadium jersey has more ventilation.  The stadium jersey is tighter fitting, too.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

This is what it looks like when a plane drops fire retardant right on you




"KUSI photojournalist Taylor Schuss ends up on the business end of a load of fire retardant dropped from a DC10 Supertanker fighting the Cocos Fire in San Marcos on 5/14/14." Via.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

"The number of commercials in the typical hour of television has grown steadily during the last five years"

"In 2009, the broadcast networks averaged 13 minutes and 25 seconds of commercial time per hour. In 2013, that figure grew to 14 minutes and 15 seconds." The jump is even bigger on cable.

The restaurant Knife in Dallas sells steak by the inch, and the smallest portion you can buy is one inch for $80

What makes the cut so special?
The flavor intensity of Tesar's dry-aged steak compared to other dry aged-steaks is due to both the length of the aging process and the fact that he develops white mold on the meat rather than black mold as most steakhouses do. The white mold imparts the pungent flavors of "bleu cheese, popcorn, [and] white truffle" into the meat.

Hellboy/BPRD relics



Relics from the world of Hellboy by Skelton Crew Studios--approximately $35 each.

Progress has been made on The Goon movie



Eric Powell on The Goon movie being made by Blur:
Well, everyone at Blur has been hard at work on the story reel and are just about finished compiling the first edited pass. At that point, Fincher, Blur, and I will be sitting down to go over some final edits. To say it’s going well would be putting it lightly. I have seen about 90% of the story reel footage, and I’m super proud of the efforts of everyone involved. Everyone remains just as passionate as ever to get this film completed, and it shows in every frame of the story reel. We still have hurtles to cross, but armed with this story reel and your overwhelming support, we remain confident we will find the right home for this film.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Giada's new restaurant has a 600-page training manual

Giada De Laurentiis has a new restaurant opening in Las Vegas. There is a 600-page training manual for service and the kitchen.

Bearpuncher



Death Got No Mercy available at Amazon.

Vasquez from Aliens runs a bra business catering to large-breasted women


JENETTE BRAS
I was neck deep into my forties when I found out my real bra size. I had mixed feelings. My band size went down. That was great. But my cup... holy crap. I didn’t know they even used that part of the alphabet. My husband’s eyes glazed over when I told him the news. A sense of deep contentment seemed to settle over him, like he had won some kind of lottery. So that was good. Also good: my back stopped hurting. My straps stopped digging into me. I stopped adjusting myself all the time. It was easy to stand up straight. I looked good in clothes that didn’t used to fit right. And I wondered: I’ve been a working actress in Hollywood for 20 years. How come nobody told me about this before? 
Oh wait, they did. But who listens to the old Jewish lady in the therapeutic girdle wrapping a measuring tape around your embarrassingly voluptuous 12-year-old chest? Not me. So, here I am, rocking my Spanx and ready to impart a little old-school wisdom. The only way to get an accurate measurement is to get fitted. Your mother knew this and so did your grandma. 
Most women blessed with a figure like ours are wearing the wrong size bra. Chances are that right now half of your boob is bulging out somewhere or other. I call it Mall Bra Syndrome. It’s a low inventory, low wage, low skill business model that just about works for gals up to a C-cup, if they’re not too picky. But where is a store for us? 
Well, I come from a long line of women who are big on bosom and short on patience. So, enough already. 
Jenette Bras. 
Quality products and personal service in a chic, modern environment. You’re welcome.
Via.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Laika's creative blogger outreach for The Box Trolls has begun

Mondo's new poster for Her



Poster by Matthew Woodson for Her on sale at Mondo sometime tomorrow for $45.